Just when you thought there was nothing left to the holidays but tree recycling, gift returning and cookie withdrawal comes a late-breaking bulletin from the celebration front. Make room in your life for one more present, San Diego. Because Mother Nature has a very special treat in store for you, and it’s a biggie.

Thanks to the combined efforts of the moon and the sun, we are now in that magical time known “tide pool season.” From mid-December through mid-February, San Diego has the lowest daytime tides we have all year. For these few precious months, the ocean’s bounty is there for the looking at a time when we are actually awake to enjoy it. And to help you get the most out of this tiny window of opportunity, the Birch Aquarium has a tide-pool ticket with your name on it.

During Birch’s “Tidepooling Adventures,” you can join a team of naturalists for two hours of guided tide-pool explorations that will help you find the small treasures and big surprises in the nooks and crannies of these teeming habitats. From motoring mollusks to one ticked-off little octopus, here are a few of the goodies my tide-pooling mates and I found during an excursion this month. May the tidal force be with you.

Adventures 101: This season’s remaining Birch Aquarium tide-pooling jaunts will be held on Jan. 4, 18, 31 and Feb. 15. They alternate between the Dike Rock and False Point tide pools in La Jolla. Tickets are $12 for members and $15 for the public, and pre-purchase is required. Call (858) 534-7336 or reserve online at aquarium.ucsd.edu. Children ages 2 to 13 must be accompanied by a paid adult. The sea breezes can be chilly, and the jagged rocks are most unforgiving. Dress in layers and wear sturdy, water-friendly shoes. You might be tempted to wear flip-flops. For the love of your toes, please don’t.

Tips R Us: Our False Point adventure started with some brief informative talks from the Birch naturalists, which covered everything from the science of tide-pool season to tide-pooling etiquette.

Best accessories? Patience — “When you find a pool, just sit and observe it for awhile,” said Art Smart — and perhaps a small child. “They see things that we wouldn’t normally see, maybe because they’re closer to the ground,” said Kate Jirik. Most surprising advice? Feel free to pick up the rocks. Most important rule? Don’t pick up the animals.

“These animals are much smaller than us,” Chris Fitzsimmons reminded the group. “Keep in mind that what seems like a little pick up or put down to us is very stressful for them.”

Most sought-after sighting? All of the naturalists agreed that all sea life is worth seeing. But at the tide pools, some residents are a little more thrill-inducing than others.

“I would love to see an octopus,” Fitzsimmons said. “It is never a bad time to see an octopus.”

Creatures featured: If at first you don’t succeed, follow the experts. That became my plan when I looked up from my too-quiet pool to see a small crowd gathered around Smart and a bin holding his first discovery: a small sea slug known as a “sea hare,” which gets its cuddly name from its rabbity-looking tentacles.

As the crowd looked on, Smart fed the sea hare some sea lettuce, which it nibbled as daintily as a sea slug possibly could. It was weirdly adorable. Later in the afternoon, visits to the naturalists’ bins yielded close-up looks at a tiny bat star starfish, a little sculpin fish, many brittle stars, a prehistoric-looking chiton mollusk, and a baby abalone the size of a child’s thumb. All of them were returned to the pools, where they could go back to hiding from amateurs like me.

“The more eyes you have, the more things you can spot,” said Heather Blake of Carmel Mountain, who was exploring the tide pools with her two-year-old son, Rowan. “Wasn’t the sea hare awesome?”

Ready, aim, squirt: The six best words you can hear while tide-pooling? “Bring a bucket for the octopus!” That was the cry heard across the rocks when one of the tide-poolers found a handsome baby octopus lurking under a rock. And as naturalist Alexx Robles put the critter gently in a viewing bin, it returned the favor by redecorating her shirt with a generous squirt of squid ink. Icky, but also awesome.

Your moment of Zen: You don’t have to join Birch’s “Tidepooling Adventures” to have a tide-pool adventure. Tide-pool charts are available online, and well-stocked pools abound. Some of the best are at the Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma, which is stunning year-round but is miraculous during tide-pool season.

But in the end, it really doesn’t matter where you go or what you find. During this flicker of a moment, the real gift is just being there.

“We are always rushing around, and the way to enjoy the tide pools to the fullest is to slow down and appreciate all of the small animals you can see in there,” Jirik said. “And the hope is that this will spill into the rest of your life and all of the other things you enjoy.”